Neil's Carden 300 Build

[Neil4]

Hey guys,

I just recently got a Carden 300 kit and started to build it. I wasn't sure if I should do a build thread but since my friend Vince is doing a build thread on his Carden 260 I figured I might as well do a thread on my 300. So since I am doing a build now I think I should tell you a little bit about myself as well as what equipment I plan to use in the airplane.

My name is Neil as you can tell from the title of the thread. I currently fly IMAC in the Intermediate class. This will be my first Carden. What really inspired me to build giant scale airplanes such as the Carden is from all the great build threads that are put on this site. As Vince mentioned in his thread, I can't count the number of things I have learned on this site. Guys like Albert Santiago, Dave Michael, Ty Lyman, Walt, Matty Matt, and Rob Journer who build absolutly beautiful airplanes with excellant quality are the guys I look up in terms of building and I am striving for that same type of quality.


As far as eqipment goes, here is what I plan to use so far:

• DA 150
• Exhaust is undecided at the moment. It will most likely be MTW canisters but I am anxious to hear about the MTW R3 pipes as I am considering that option
• Hitec 7955
• Fromeco 5200 batts.
• Futaba 2.4 FASST reciever
• Smart-fly 14MZ power expander
• Hanger 9 linkages

This won't be a totally complete build thread since i have already started building. But I will post pictures from this point on about what I do. So enough of my chit chat and let's get to the build!!

Neil

[Neil4]

So far I have built both fuse truss sides, sheeted them and layed them up with the motor box. The truss sides were built with Mercury High Performance CA and then sheeted with Titebond II wood glue. I have sheeted both stabs and glued on the leading and trailing edge stock and I have sheeted the belly pan. I still have to trim the belly pan though....

[mhilderbrandt]

Hey Neal
When you get to the point of covering and if you use the sceme on your avitar I have the templates for the sceme.
Mike Hilderbrandt

[Neil4]

Sounds great Mr. Mike! I am sure I will be using your scheme so I will take you up on that.

Thanks again,

Neil

[dmichael]

Great job Neil. Looking forward to seeing it go. Please let me know if I can answer any questions for you as you are building. I am sure you will love this plane.

Neil is a great young man and I am sure his Dad is proud of him. Everytime I see him fly he gets better and better. At the rate he is going I am sure he will be a force to reckon with in any class. ARFs are tough to resist these days and it is gratifying to see a young modeler take on a build like this.

[FENWAYFLYER]

Looks good Neil. It was a pleasure meeting you and your dad at the last event. I wish i could have flown both days. I learned alot watching you guys rip it up. Keep up the good work.

Rick

[Neil4]

Thanks Mr. Rick and Mr. Dave, I appreciate it. Pictures are coming shortly!!

Neil

[heligrom]

Lookin good my man!! Can't wait to see how it turns out, especially since another "younger" guy is doin it. I cant wait till i have the cash to do one of these big carden guys.

[3-d flyer]

Neil, good luck on your build..... I am also building a 300 over this winter. Waiting for mine to go out yet from Carden..... i am really looking forward to this build myself........
subscribed!

I went with the cnc motor box as well.... how did you like assembling it? Everything looks great so far! Keep it up.......
Dave

[Neil4]

Hey Guys,

Just got up from the shop. I trimmed the belly pan as well as lightened it, trimmed the final caps on the stabs, and created a new stab ply root with attchment points.

For the belly pan, I glue on the balsa strips before trimming the excess balsa sheeting from the pan to elimate any extra seam that could be seen through covering. Once trimmed, I layed out the lightening holes. For cutting the lightening holes out I used a Dremel Tool with the depth guidence attchment to help make sure I was making the cuts close to a 90 degree angle. After I rough cut the holes out, I made custom sanding bars made out of scrap 1/2 balsa with self adhesive 80 grit sandpaper to fit inside the cutouts to clean them up.

For the stabs, I capped the ends using 1/8 balsa. Now here is a trick most of you will know but I will share it anyway. I got this trick from Albert and it works very well when capping any kind of surface. When holding done the piece of sheeting to the stab end, put a piece of balsa stock in the middle to apply all of the tension that you are putting down with the tape to the stock. This insures that the cap is meeting flush with the foam core and not just the ends. Also, for the stabs I made up a new root rib. This root has the popular mounting pads built into the rib which will be drilled to fit an 8-32 bolt to make it easy to put on and take off the stabs. The plastic L bracket and screw in the tube like Carden suggests works just fine but I find this way a bit easier since I will be taking the stabs on and off to transport.

Neil

[Neil4]

Hi Dave,

Sounds good. You will really like your Carden, it is a kit like no other!! As far as the motorbox goes, the construction process is very easy and is much better in my opinion than the orignal motor box. What I did was print out a picture of the motorbox complete from Carden's website, then I used that as a reference for mine. To put the box itself together I reccomend using triangles because even though the box is CNC cut, the tolerances are fairly loose to allow some give for a perfect fit. I have a few pictures of the individual box complete, sorry I forgot to take the pictures as I was putting the box together but hopefully the pictures will help you a bit.

Neil

[sensei]

Hello Neil,

Looks like you are doing a really nice job on your build and I am sure you will love this airplane when your finished. May I make one small suggestion in regards to adding penetrations to a structure or in this case lightening holes in your belly pan.

Never leave square corners; they by design create stress risers at the intersections and will crack in time.

Always radius the corners as this will diminish the risers and you will not have to deal with cracked corners later.

Please do not take this as a stab at your build, because its not; I just think sharing this kind of information is vital to those who may not know.

Bob

PS This information is a standard practice in general full scale aviation.

[ifly3d]

Neil,

Looks good. Keep up the work.

Josh

[Neil4]

Thanks Josh. Sensei, thanks for the comment as well. I will round off the corners.

Neil

[3-d flyer]

Neil, sent you a P.M.